Tree Man Hat

Since Hal's birthday is in February, and he has a shaved head, I take great pleasure in making him his annual hat. He wears them all the time, even in the house, as seen here. I especially like this hat. Its that old 70's ski hat and you can get the pattern online here. We used to wear them when I was growing up in snowy Syracuse.

The wool has a story. I have always wanted to make a hat with wool that was dyed from trees. I had been telling H (Master Arborist that he is) that his helping me find bark that I could dye with is a no-brainer. Something we could do together! Not to mention that he loves to peel bark off of branches almost as much as I enjoy knitting. So when he trimmed our birch tree in the front yard, I asked him to peel the bark from the branches he had cut.

Also, a while back, he had mentioned to his boss that I would like some oak galls. (His boss had access to a lot of them because they are a problem in his area. We couldn't find them here.) I got enough of oak galls to pass them out to all my artist (they made ink) and knitting (dye) friends.

So this is what I did: I used the oak galls to mordant a nice large skein of white handspun that my mom had bought me in New Zealand. I separated out three small balls and dyed two in some dye from osage orange woodchips (yellow), then took one of those and added it to an iron modifier (basically rusty water) to turn it olive green. Then I took the larger skein and dyed it in the birch bark, which had been sitting for a week in water and simmering all that day. It came out a nice brown. Then I left the other small skin in the birch bath for much longer and I got an even darker brown. I was so happy with the results! In knitting the hat, I used some tan alpaca I had around for the inner lining so that it would be soft. The dying process can cause the wool to become a bit harsh, and I think that was true in this case. So I felt the liner should be soft. Below are more pictures of the process. I really love this hat!